Labour market information

Labour market information (LMI) can show you where the jobs are now and predicts where they may be in the future. It helps you find work, feel confident in your career decisions and answer important questions like:

LMI comes from many sources and is organized in different ways for different audiences. Federal government agencies are primary sources of LMI, but provincial and regional governments, colleges, industries, and other organizations also share information about jobs, training, salaries, working conditions and more. Lots of LMI is readily available online.

National Occupational Classification (NOC): NOC 2011 is the authoritative resource on occupational information in Canada. It describes and categorizes types of work to help professionals and job seekers understand the jobs in Canada's labour market.

Municipal governments, regional districts, chambers of commerce and other community-based organizations often publish reports related to economic growth and strategic plans. These can be a rich source of LMI and help you find growing industries and organizations that are creating employment. Here are some examples to get you started. To find more for your community, try searching “your city/region” + “economic development”.

Some sectors and industries create organizations to support their economic growth. Here are some examples. You can talk to a career educator or search online to find out about organizations like these for other industries.

LMI is useful for many different purposes, whether you’re considering future career options or looking for a job now. Let’s say you’re ready to search for a job. You could dive right in to searching for postings and applying for jobs right away... or you could research the job market first to find out what types of jobs are out there and where those jobs might be. Enter LMI!

LMI research is an important piece of your overall career exploration and job search strategies. Here's how it fits in (Amundson and Poehnell 2015). When you consider that your ideal career sits in the intersection between your passions, competencies and opportunities, LMI can help fill in the "opportunities" side.

Exploring LMI while you’re still pursuing your degree can help shape and sharpen your career trajectory. The new information you discover may create new questions and fuel further research into other sectors, careers, locations and more.